The stories of Beverly Cleary, an award winning children’s book author, will be presented on stage this weekend by the Eunice Fuller Theatre for Youth at Lakeland Community Theatre. Playwright Len Jenkin took a number of Beverly Cleary’s books and made a play about them entitled “Ramona Quimby”.

The play followsRamona through third grade and through her family relationships. The problems facing the Quimbys, a middle-class Oregon family, are problems common to most families. It seems that Ramona is always aggravating her older sister, Beezus, constantly getting into trouble and sometimes “making a big, noisy fuss” when things don’t go her way.

The show’s costumer, Bernardette Heaps, tells me that it is a fun, very colorful show with a lot of humor and jokes that kids will understand. She extols the entire cast and particularly the title character actor, Isabel Johnson. Many quick set and costume changes make for a challenging task, especially for child actors, but it seems all is under control and audiences can enjoy four performances this weekend. Showtimes are 7:30 pm tonight (Friday, September 26) and Saturday and 2pm on Saturday and Sunday at the Lake Mirror Center Theatre, 121 South Lake Avenue, Lakeland.

Tickets are available by calling the box office at 863-603-7529, on line at www.lakelandcommunitytheatre.com or at the door up to one hour prior to each performance at $12 for adults and $10 for children under the age of 12.

FYI – About Children’s Author Beverly Cleary upon whose books the play “Ramona Quimby” is based.

Beverly Cleary, who is now 98 years old, and is the author of more than 30 children’s books was born in McMinnville, Oregon, and lived on a farm in Yamhill, a town so small it had no library. Her mother arranged with the State Library to have books sent to Yamhill and acted as librarian in a lodge room upstairs over a bank. There, Beverly learned to love books.

When the family moved to Portland, where Beverly attended grammar school and high school, she soon found herself in the low reading circle, an experience that has given her sympathy for the problems of struggling readers. By the third grade she had conquered reading and spent much of her childhood either with books or on her way to and from the public library. Before long her school librarian suggested that she write books for children when she grew up. The idea appealed to her, and she decided that someday she would write the books she longed to read, but was unable to find on the library shelves — funny stories about her neighborhood and the sort of children she knew.

After graduation from junior college in Ontario, California, and the University of California at Berkeley, Beverly entered the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington, Seattle. There she specialized in library work with children. She was the children’s librarian in Yakima, Washington, until she married Clarence Cleary and moved to California where they became the parents of twins.

When children ask Beverly where she finds her ideas, she replies, “From my own experience and from the world around me.” Henry Huggins, written when she was in her early thirties, was her first attempt at writing. Her advice to the many children who write asking for “tips” on writing is for them to read widely while growing up, and when the time comes for them to write, they will find their own way of writing and will not need tips to guide them.

Beverly’s books are the recipients of two of children’s literature’s most prestigious awards – the Newbery Medal Award and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal.

About This Blog

I was thrilled to be asked by The Ledger to become its first theatre blogger. Already writing preview articles about Polk County’s community theatres and feature articles for Inside Polk Magazine, I thought blogging uk essay writing service would be fun and fulfill a need for the community.

I have long been on a soap box about the abundance of available local entertainment. When someone complains that there is not much to do culturally in Polk County, I am not shy about telling them that they just aren’t looking. So I am thrilled to be able to let the buy papers online local community know, via my blog, about all the wonderful and varied theatrical venues and performances that are available in Polk County, sometimes in very surprising places.